Mobile VoIP plagued with promise, pitfalls

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in RCR Wireless News’ January Special Edition Wireless Infrastructure: The Engine for Economic Recovery. Look for our March Special Edition, coming soon.
The mobile industry has always been a step or two behind its wired brethren, for better or worse. Whether it was in offering high-speed data services or the deployment of content services, the wireless industry has been able to watch how new technologies have impacted the wired space before having to face those same challenges on its own turf.
The latest technology advancement creeping from the wired to the wireless world is voice over Internet Protocol services. These offerings transform traditional voice services into a data service that can more efficiently be run over a data network rather than traditional telephone lines.
These offerings have been the central technology for cable companies that have added voice services to their established cable television and high-speed Internet bundles allowing them to offer the highly-coveted “triple-play” package. Established telecom providers have also begun rolling out VoIP-based telephone service on their growing fiber-to-the-home networks.
For wired companies the challenge has been that third-party application developers have come up with offerings that run over high-speed Internet connections and offer a service that competes against traditional voice offerings.
A prime example of this is Skype Ltd., which has offered an application that allows computer users to place and receive free or discounted voice and video calls over a high-speed Internet connection.
Skype is also a prime example of this migration as the company’s application has been ported to run on a number of mobile operating systems, including Apple Inc.’s OSX and Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile.
Going mobile
For wireless, migration of VoIP services to the mobile space has become a blessing and a curse. Blessing in that the technology should allow spectrally-challenged a more efficient transport method for voice communications. Curse in that like in the wired space, third-party developers are champing at the bit to unleash their offerings on mobile networks.
“Ten years from now, more than half of mobile voice traffic will be carried end-to-end using VoIP,” said Akshay Sharma, research director at Gartner. “Carriers will adopt voice services because of the increased capacity and reduced cost of delivering voice over 4G networks. Third parties will adopt a voice option for their communications hub.”
How beneficial is the movement of voice traffic to a VoIP platform? According to Airvana Inc., mobile VoIP can deliver up to 120% more voice capacity than a circuit-based mobile voice service. This is a significant advantage that wireless carriers cannot ignore.
Current 3G networks have the capability of running VoIP service, as witnessed by the millions using Skype’s application, but carriers have shied away from such offerings due to quality of service issues. While downlink speeds of most 3G networks are up to snuff, the often slower uplink speeds have made it difficult for operators to market a solution that matched the voice quality of their circuit-switched offerings.
The deployment of network updates that have increased uplink speeds, whether they be the Revision A update to CDMA2000 1x EV-DO or the HSUPA upgrade to HSDPA, has helped improve QoS as well as other issues that impact performance such as packet overhead and jitter. Carriers that have dipped their toes into the mobile VoIP space have limited such offerings to fringe services like push to talk.
The challenge for carriers getting behind mobile VoIP services is that their data networks need to have network coverage equal to their voice networks. Verizon Wireless, for example, claims its EV-DO data network covers 284 million potential customers, a significant 5 million pops short of its 1x-based network.
Others have either been reluctant or have turned a blind eye to customers attempting to access mobile VoIP services. AT&T Mobility recently acknowledged customer frustration in only being able to use the Skype application from their iPhones when connected to a Wi-Fi network by saying it would allow VoIP calls on its 3G network regardless of device used.
4G the answer?
Analysts expect the ongoing move to 4G networks will be the technology advancement needed to finally usher in the deployment of mobile VoIP services.
“Mass-scale adoption of end-to-end mobile VoIP calling will not happen until fourth-generation (4G) networks are fully implemented in 2017,” said Tole Hart, research director at Gartner. “Once the basic market conditions are in place, transition to mobile portal VoIP should be fairly rapid because of the inherent convenience and end-user cost savings. In 10 years time we expect that 30% of mobile voice traffic will be carried out through third-party mobile portals, such as Google, Facebook, MySpace and Yahoo, which will adopt wireless VoIP service as a voice option to their current communications hub.”
The flatter network architecture and greater capacity of 4G networks could solve many of the problems currently keeping carriers from moving to VoIP on 3G networks. AT&T Mobility President and CEO noted at this year’s CTIA event that the carrier would have no trouble allowing mobile VoIP services over its planned LTE network as it would just be bits traveling over the all-IP layout, similar to regular data traffic. The challenge of course will be in attempting to bill for such services.
Carriers have so far been inclined to offer “limited” unlimited data plans on their 3G networks for fear of letting a few heavy-data users wreck network quality for the many. While 4G is expected to provide for greater capacity, carriers will still need to figure out pricing plans that cater towards consumers’ want of unlimited offerings without letting some take advantage of the offer.
And for carriers to offer their own branded services will require extensive build out to support not just the breadth of their network, but also the depth of it as in-building penetration would be paramount. Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility seem to have an advantage here as the 700 MHz spectrum that is expected to be the heart of their LTE builds provides the propagations characteristics needed for in-building coverage, while those carriers using higher-spectrum bands would likely need to rely on in-building repeaters to offer similar QoS.
Few deny that VoIP will play a central role in the evolution of mobile voice transmissions as the spectral benefits are just too substantial to ignore. The challenge will be how carriers build out the supporting infrastructure, price and market the offering and manage competing offerings.